Re: Wireshark ABI stability 1.6.4 -> 1.6.5

[Balint Reczey <balint.reczey () ericsson com>]

Hi Gerald,

On 01/09/2012 07:56 PM, Gerald Combs wrote:
> On 1/8/12 12:08 PM, Balint Reczey wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have run tools/git-compare-abis.sh on latest master-1.6
> > (wireshark-1.6.4-21-ga6c3642).
> >
> > The ABI is almost totally stable [1], which is very good sign for plugin
> > developers and for anyone using Wireshark's libraries.  :-)
> >
> > There is only a minor incompatibility in packet-zbee-zcl.h caused by
> > changed constants, which could be fixed by not backporting r40133.
>
> The ABI change is the result of fixing a bug. If we revert the change
> the ZigBee ZCL dissector will revert back to its previous broken
> behavior and packet-zbee-zcl.h will have incorrect definitions.
> Shouldn't we change the libwireshark version from 2:0:1 to 2:1:0 instead?
I don't know how important the ZigBee change is, but generally bumping the major 
version of a library is something I would avoid.
After releasing 1.8.0 we should definitely avoid it because we will probably 
bump the major version in 1.8.0 and bumping it in 1.6.x would result a collision.

As a not too nice solution we can release 1.6.4 with a known ABI breakage what 
is still better than breaking the ABI more like we did in the past.

I would prefer not breaking the ABI and not releasing the ZigBee fix because 
this would be a clean solution and users can always download the automated 
builds to get the latest correct dissector.

Generally I would prefer releasing only stability/security/build fixes in the 
stable branch to minimize the probability of introducing new bugs and 
incompatibilities.

Cheers,
Balint
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